


It Doesn't Take a Physician

by MontagueBitch (porcia_catonis)



Series: The Fulvia Chronicles [1]
Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Married Couple, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcia_catonis/pseuds/MontagueBitch
Summary: Set in 62 bce, it's taken so little time for Fulvia and Clodius to fall into domestic bliss.  When, after just a few months, Fulvia comes down with an unknown ailment, Clodia Metelli saves the day, and of course, it's all Clodius's fault.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allcinders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allcinders/gifts).



> I have fallen into utter Fulvia/Clodius Hell, a specific brand of rarepair Hell.

It never used to be this way, but Clodius woke first, and was first to rise yet again.  When they married, Fulvia had quickly established that her husband relished sleep far more than she did.  Fulvia can feel the blankets at her side move, and the pleasant warmth that had been her companion melt away.  She grasps at the empty space and his ascending bedclothes blindly, and hears him laugh at her, catlike and still sleepy.  Yet even the lack of warmth and company isn't quite enough to coax her into movement, just yet.  For what seems like the hundredth day in a row, though her husband is quite sure it's only been a few weeks, Fulvia feels like death.  Her limbs may as well be weighed down by rocks, and her stomach still feels like it would turn itself inside out at the slightest provocation.  Seeing the usual fire below her feet skip his wife by, Clodius strokes her cheek with an affectionate hand.

"Are you still unwell, dear wife?"  Awakened enough by the sudden chill of the air, and the unpleasant awareness of the sickly feeling, Fulvia looks up at her husband, seeing the soft look of concern on his face, brows knit together. 

She nods, rolling over in the bed onto her back, facing him.  "I've been telling you, I think I've come down with something.  Just feel lucky I haven't given it to you, yet."  With a turn of her head, she kisses the hand still resting against her cheek, nuzzling it as he pulls away.  It is not, of course, the best way to avoid spreading whatever awful thing is plaguing her, but she isn’t sure she can bring herself to care enough to turn him away, so long as he doesn’t leave of his own volition.  It just makes him laugh, and she can’t bring herself to be surprised about that.

“I don’t think that even you could give me that order, and have me obey it, love.”  His smile makes her almost feel invigorated enough out of bed.  All she really brings herself to do is sit, and return it in kind.  “Will you be joining me this morning, or shall I have something brought in for you to eat?”

At that suggestion, she remembers the true bane of her existence of late; mealtimes have become as unpleasant as sleeping through a never-quiet thunderstorm.  “Neither, I beg you,” she says emphatically, leaning back against the bedframe.  Fulvia has forced herself to eat, but only with deep reluctance, and sometimes with more success than others. 

“I’m no physician, but I do recall reading somewhere that not eating at all is generally ill advice.”  His face is painted over by the smirk he often wears, but these few months alone have tuned her ears to catch the concern in his voice.  “Speaking of, if you’re no better tomorrow, I ought to call one of them for you.”

“Oh, don’t.  That would be a dreadful fuss.”  She frowns, waving the thought away, though privately wondering if she hasn’t been cursed, or some other melodramatic conclusion, the stuff of epic.  Likely, she simply are the wrong thing.  Trying to shake his concern, she forces herself from the bed, lets herself be dressed, and joins him, even reluctantly eating a bit.  It goes over without her being ill, and thus better than yesterday, but the pallor of her face as she does it seems to keep his suspicion present.

She’s fortunate, though, in that the illness seems to subside for a while.  The day passes in otherwise pleasant peace, her husband home for the day and the servants all busy readying the house for guests to join the couple for dinner.  It’s been mere months, but she finds herself at home so completely, she swears she’s never lived anywhere else.  Hardly an hour passes where she or Clodius does not make the other laugh, or they don’t remember some mutually loathed thing to commiserate and rage against together. 

They are seated together on one of the couches, her head leaned against his shoulder, when the first of their guests arrives, and she bolts herself upright, only to be cut off from her moment’s embarrassment by a familiar laugh.  Her husband’s favorite sister has arrived, and Clodia is not a woman to find a bit of affection something to blush at. 

And of course, with her comes the life of the party; her charisma and boldness is the kind that Fulvia could not help but liking immediately upon meeting her.  “Calm down, dear little sister.  I’m pleased to see some people marry someone they can bear being near.”

“Would you expect anything else from me, dear sister?”  Clodius laughs, clutching his heart in a mock of being hurt.  “Am I not so charming that any wife would be thrilled to have me?”

Clodia raises a brow and shrugs, though her eyes are smiling.  “You are a lucky man, dear brother, that Fulvia has charitable standards, I suppose.” 

Fulvia is grinning wildly up at her sister-in-law.  “She’s not wrong.  You ought to thank me daily.”

“Ah,” Clodius says, pressing a kiss to the side of her face.  “You’ve both got me wrong.  I already do.”

“I do believe Antonius’s chariot wasn’t far behind me,” Clodia says, with a glance to the window.  “You may need to be besotted later.”  With some reluctance, the couple parted, that their guests may not have to drown in the honeyed words and looks.

It’s during dinner between themselves, and a few friends more, that Fulvia’s illness shows itself again.  In a rather less elegant manner than she’d have hoped, she has to quit the room halfway through a delightful anecdote about a misadventure between Antonius and young Curio, when she has to run out of her guests’ view to be ill again.  In her haste, she doesn’t realize that her sister-in-law had followed her.

“Clodia,” She feels flush with embarrassment burn her face, which had lacked the redness of fever despite her illness this whole time.  “I’m sorry to, er, have behaved indecently before you.  You have to understand I’ve not been well.”

Clodia gives her a curious look, not unlike her brother’s, though hers is without the note of worry of a newlywed.  “Never matter.  I’ve been around enough drunkards that I’m hardly bothered anymore,” she shrugs.  “You’ve been ill, dear sister?  How long?”

“A few weeks,” Fulvia sighs, slouching slightly in her misery.  “Clodius thinks I’m ill enough for a physician if it’s not gone by now.”  She quickly covers her tracks, so that she might not cause any further worry.  “Mind you, it’s not spread to anyone else, and other than a reluctance to get out of bed, and a delicate stomach of late, I may as well not be ill.  I don’t need a physician, I don’t think.”

Clodia nods as she lists out the things that bother her, and the time it’s been, as though somewhere, she’s made a note of something quite important.  “You’re right, more likely than not.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My dear brother is fretting so much.  Actually, I should _hope_ you don’t suddenly stop being ill by morning.”

And now, it is Fulvia’s turn to be quizzical.  “You’re either mad, or wicked.”  These are not, indeed, accusations she hurls at her favorite of Clodius’s siblings often.

“No, I’m quite afraid I’m not.  May I ask you something strange?  While the men are out of earshot?”  Fulvia finds it quite unusual, but she nods.

“You may.” 

There’s a pause, but when she speaks, it’s more a statement than a question.  “You’ve not bled for a while, have you?”

“It’s been--?”  She has to stop to consider, before coming up slightly blank.  It was a different season last she did.  “Longer than it ought to be, you’re right.  How would you know something like that?”  But Clodia doesn’t even have to open her mouth before Fulvia realizes precisely what she’s getting at.  “ _Oh_.”

“Like I said.  You’ll stop being ill soon enough.  Just likely not for a while.” 

“Right.”  She finds herself speechless, almost out of breath, and unable to stop a flutter of excitement from passing through her.  “Right then.”  She says again, clearing her throat.  “Shall we return to the others?  I can’t imagine anything remotely interesting has happened since you left the room.”

“How right you are, my dearest sister.”

When all have left, but mirth still hangs in the air, she feels Clodious catch her round the waist from behind, his arms both warm and firm around her.  His lips press a soft kiss to the top of her head, and she leans back against him. 

“Husband, I really ought to tell you something,” she breathes, lifting her eyes up to him.  Indeed, by how long she’s been unwell, she must have been in this condition for two, maybe three months already. 

“Then I suggest that you do.”  He says, squeezing her middle as he does.  Fulvia finds herself wanting to face him.  She’s suddenly aware that her own heart is racing; she has never felt one way or the other about children, but the one she carries now will be Clodius’s child.  Already she can see a lovely baby, with his eyes and nose, and her smile, and feels a rush of pride for a child not yet moving, let alone born.  She hadn’t anticipated that one day the man who would father her children would be one she adored so wholly.  She pulls away from his hold, turning and taking both of his hands in hers.

“I don’t need a physician, my dear.”  She says it through a smile, looking first down at her feet, and then at him again.  “Your sister made what’s been causing me to feel so dreadful very clear this evening.”

“Oh?”  He doesn’t quite follow her, that much is clear in his face.  It makes her laugh to herself.  “What has dear Clodia enlightened you with.”

“She’s made it quite plain that you’re the cause of my illness, husband.”

“I must say, I hesitate to believe that much.”  He squeezes her hand, and though she is certain he can tell she speaks technically in jest, he is no closer to the truth than he was a moment ago.  She shall have to spell it out for him.

“It’s fairly early to go about getting too excited, mind you,” she disclaims, worried already that she’ll be one of so many women to lose a child they didn’t even get to hold.  Despite her worry, she takes one of his hands and presses it against her stomach; it is still nothing to be particularly noticeable, even as she dresses and undresses at morning and night, but with knowledge comes a degree of promise there.  “But I’m quite positive that I’m with child.”

Clodius stands frozen for a moment, before she’s being pulled closer, and gathered into her arms.  She releases a breath she couldn’t recall holding, and clinging to him just as tightly. 

“So it is my fault, after all,” he says, laughing now.

“So it is, dearest.”


End file.
